Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Painted in 2004
  Red Rock Art, Kununurra
  Private collection
  
  Billy Thomas Joongoorra's meteoric rise as an acclaimed artist began virtually as soon as he turned to painting for Waringarri Arts in 1995, and within 12 months he had been selected for the National Aboriginal Art Award, won the East Kimberely Prize, and held his first solo exhibition. Like his fellow Wangkajungka artist Rover Thomas, he was born in early European contact times, and both worked as stockmen when teenagers on the Canning Stock Route in remote Western Australia.
  
  Thomas' paintings typically use the iconography and visual language of traditional desert peoples, though are painted in traditional ochres used by the 'East Kimberley School', with the self assurance of a desert master. This painting is representative of some of his rarest, later paintings, where traditional iconography has virtually disappeared, and the tactile 'earthy' surface is replete with gestural brushstrokes, thickly applied in predominately white pigments, giving the painting a light and atmospheric appearance.
  
  This painting is sold with accompanying Red Rock Art documentation that reads: 'Jalpiny is the Wangkajunga name for the flower of the Desert Banksia which provide crucial source of sugar for people living a traditional lifestyle. This work shows a Desert Banksia in full bloom'.